Collide
by FleurRebelle
Summary: What if Toby and Emmett were switched instead of the girls? How will everyone's lives be turned upside down now?


**Update:** **I'm back guys! I decided to continue on with the story because of some of my reviewers. I'm so happy you guys like it, or at least the idea of the story. So, I've gone back and fixed some things and added some things trying to make a full go of this. I should be posting a new chapter very soon! **

**Author's Note: For those of you who haven't already read this, I want to explain a few things first. For starters, let's pretend that Emmett and Toby are the same age. Emmett was sent to the Kennishes and Toby to the Bledsoes. Therefore Daphne is Emmett's sister, but they're still very close. I'm keeping their names the same to cut down on confusion. Emmett is still deaf of course and goes to Buckner. Toby goes to Carlton because he's a CODA (I know this doesn't usually happen). Also, Angelo never left. This is just a little background before they found out about the switch. I'm thinking of shaping this up to be mostly a Bemmett story, so the focus would be on them in future chapters.**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Switched At Birth or any of these characters :)

**EMMETT:**

Emmett Kennish sat at the kitchen counter eating blueberry scones. His mom Katherine was calling his name, but Emmett was oblivious; lost in thought as usual. But that wasn't the only reason he wasn't paying attention. He was also deaf. Emmett finally snapped back to reality when he felt a hand on his shoulder. He lifted his face to meet his mom's cheerful smile.

"Honey, you really should turn on your implant. I've been calling you for ten minutes. I wanted to make sure you were awake."

Emmett sighed. He mumbled a monotone "Sorry" and returned to his half eaten food.

His mother just didn't understand. He hated the cochlear implant. It made his already confusing world even more so. However, he did manage well with it. The implant helped him out a lot when he was younger and sat through hours of intensive speech therapy; enabling him to speak fairly well. Not that Emmett spoke much anyway. He never really felt comfortable with his family or anywhere else for that matter. Being deaf in a hearing family was not easy. Especially in the Kennish household. It's not that they didn't care about Emmett; they did. He was their son and they loved him deaf or not. They just didn't know how to handle him being different. His father was after all the infamous John Kennish. A rich, former major league baseball player who owns a slew of businesses all over town, including a car wash. With all their money, they had done everything in their power to make their son feel "normal". But there were a few things infinitely more valuable than anything the Kennishes could possibly buy that they never managed to give him. A sense of belonging; a sense of pride in being deaf and perhaps most important of all, a language of his own.

When he was seven years old, Emmett had seen a movie where one of the characters was deaf and used sign language. He was enchanted by the intricate movements of the language. Mimicking the signs felt as natural to him as breathing whereas speaking felt forced and foreign. He remembered dragging his mother into the room by her arm and pointing at the screen excitedly trying to convince her to help him learn it. His parents did put forth a small effort, even he had to admit that, but the sign language lessons were short lived and he eventually gave up all hope of ever learning. So for most of his life, he had gotten by on lip reading, of which he was a pro and his implant, whenever he bothered to turn it on or even wear it.

His sister Daphne bounced into the kitchen carrying her duffel bag and basketball. She was their dad's mini me. Athletic and slim, but with strawberry blonde hair like their mother. Emmett and Daphne were as close as siblings could be. They were best friends. She understood him like no one else could and she genuinely had a good heart. Then again, there were those moments when he could just choke her. Daphne could be snobby, boy crazy and extremely competitive. This side of her usually came out to it's full extent when she was with her partner in crime, Simone Sinclair, her best friend since Kindergarten. Emmett looked Daphne up and down.

"You know if those shorts were any shorter, the whole school would be getting an eyeful of the Kennish goods."

"Oh shut up!" she said playfully hitting him. "Clover's shorts are way shorter than mine and you're dating her."

"Duh, that's exactly why I'm dating her. She puts out", he said jokingly.

Daphne rolled her eyes and slid onto the stool next to him. "Are you going to school today?"

"I have to. I skipped twice last week and if I miss any more days, dad's gonna have my ass. Not to mention the principal."

"Awesome. Can you give me a ride?"

"Don't I always?", he said with his signature "James Dean" smirk as the girls liked to call it.

The two finished their breakfast and headed outside. John stopped Emmett in the driveway. "Hey Em, I have a few hours free tomorrow. I thought we could maybe go hit a few balls at the golf course and hang around the club or something." Emmett quickly came up with some excuse about camera equipment and auditioning somebody for his band. John didn't try to hide his disappointment. He just couldn't understand how his son could be so different from him. He loved photography of all things and had absolutely no interest in sports. He would never say it, but he secretly blamed it all on Emmett's deafness. John thought that maybe if Emmett wasn't deaf he could relate to him better, that Emmett wouldn't be so rebellious, that he wouldn't be so introverted and have enough confidence to try sports. He knew it was wrong, but he silently grieved for the son he would never have. John sighed in defeat and let Emmett and Daphne get on their way.

In Buckner Hall's student parking lot, Daphne hopped out of Emmett's truck to meet her friends. Emmett was soon greeted by his buddy Wilke. Wilke walked in front so Emmett could read his lips. Wilke rambled on and on about some chick he met over the weekend. They walked to Biology and Emmett sat down across from Wilke. Wilke leaned over and whispered, "Dude we're doing some blood test thing today. Can't wait to help calm down some of the girls. I know for a fact that at least half of them are squeamish around blood. Wilke to the rescue"."_Why am I friends with him again?_, Emmett wondered.

It wasn't long before Emmett's girlfriend Clover draped her arms around him puling him into a kiss. Somebody whistled alerting the teacher to this display. "Kennish, Clover, cool it down ok?" Clover giggled. At that point, Emmett wished he had turned off his implant. Her laugh was one of the sounds that really irritated him. Their relationship was purely physical. Clover was too shallow for anything else. He wished he could find somebody to really connect with. Someone to keep him from drowning.

**TOBY:**

Toby Bledsoe hopped on his bike late as usual. He had stayed up all night writing new songs. The bike definitely wasn't his style, but his dad had built it for him and he needed some form of transportation other than riding with his mom. So motorcycle it was. His mother, Melody ran out, hands flying in the air. "Sweetie wait!" Apparently he had forgotten to take out the trash.

"Do it later mom, gotta go get Bay", he signed quickly.

"Fine, have a good day at school. Are you going to your dad's today?"

"Yeah, maybe"

"Can you please inform him that the mortgage is due, which he is still obligated to pay according to our divorce agreement? And while you're at it, tell him that while he's running around with his little pre-teen hussy me and his son could be tossed out into the street."

"Dramatic much mom?", he signed shaking his head and pulling on his helmet.

He hated that his parents were being so petty and spiteful, but it didn't bother him as much as it should. His personality was too chill to stress much about their constant bickering. Mainly because he felt like they still loved each other and all of this was a phase. If it turned out this wasn't a phase, he was out of there in a year and a half anyway. He did worry about leaving his mom though. She was obviously struggling without his father around. His father had moved on so quickly and found a new girlfriend after 20 years of marriage that it was unsettling. Even to Toby. Melody didn't have anyone left but Emmett. He was her whole world and to be honest, it was suffocating to him. He had dreams of packing up; just him and his guitar. Renting some crappy apartment and playing gigs at all the frat parties at school and nightclubs in town. Yeah, that was the life for him...

He tore down the road stopping in front of the third building in a row of brownstones. His best friend Bay flew out of the house in her usual dark attire; combat boots and a black jacket. She took her emo-art persona seriously. It was strange that they were best friends. She was deaf and he was hearing, but with deaf parents. His style was preppy and hers was dark, but somehow they made it work.

"Bad Toby. You're late. If I miss English, you're dead", she said.

"You can always walk to school", he replied with a small smile.

Bay mock glared at him before breaking into a smile and climbed onto the back of his bike. Away they went.

Toby thought back to the day when he first laid eyes on the spunky Bay Vasquez. He was seven years old and had just begun to take speech therapy. He was spending half of his day at a hearing school taking classes and interacting with the other kids. He was leaving school one day when he noticed a little raven haired girl with big brown eyes being bullied by a blonde girl in pigtails. The blonde girl pushed the raven haired girl into the tree calling her names and taunting her about her deafness. Toby watched as the raven haired girl pounced on the blonde girl with an undeniable strong spirit. She was beautiful he thought to himself. Her triumph was short lived as three more girls came over and began to taunt the girl as well. She was outnumbered. They backed her up again and Toby saw the fear in her eyes as they pushed her to the ground and kicked dirt in her face. Toby immediately ran over yelling STOP, with a look of rage in his eyes that shouldn't be seen on a boy his age. The girls were frightened of Toby and immediately scattered in different directions. Toby held out his hand to the girl who was still trembling and picked up her book bag from the dirt.

"Are you okay? What's your name?" he signed. The girl looked at him confused. Toby could tell she didn't know sign. He was shocked, but he tried speaking slowly.

"What-is-your-name?". He hoped she would understand. She squinted and stared at his lips and then smiled.

"Bay", she said. Toby smiled back. He drank in her long dark curls and made a wave motion reaching from his head down to his chin. It fit her perfectly. "Bay", he repeated and grabbed her hand pulling her towards his house. His mom would know how to handle this.

Being a CODA (child of deaf adult), Toby required speech therapy because his first language was sign; not English. His father felt that although their whole family was deaf, it was important for Toby to learn to speak correctly and take advantage of the fact that he was hearing. His mother had been against it, not wanting to have Toby away from the "deaf bubble" they lived in. They had enrolled him in a deaf grammar school that accepted CODAs. His mother knew most of the other parents and she appreciated the ability to communicate with his teachers easily. Her over protective spirit was appealed to by her better senses and she finally agreed to let him go to hearing school for a half-day. Toby often felt torn in between the hearing and deaf world. He felt more comfortable in the deaf world and had opted to go to Carlton instead of a hearing high school. This was made easy by the fact that his mother was a guidance counselor and coach at Carlton. She fought against discrimination for Toby just as she would if he was deaf. If deaf children could go to hearing schools, Toby could go to a deaf school and besides, he was already fluent in sign. Melody had made sure the principal knew her views on it.

Most of his friends were going there anyway. In particular one Miss Bay Vasquez. Bay was like a sister to him and he had looked out for her since they were little. He felt very protective of her. In the back of his mind, the protective instinct secretly tormented him. After all these years, he still hadn't decided if those strong feelings he felt for Bay were out love or just a result of the very special friendship they had developed over the years. There was however, one thing he was sure of. More and more with each passing day, he increasingly felt the need to branch out into the hearing world. Through his music. Through his songs...


End file.
